Windies hoping to end 17-year drought

"Huge underdogs" say bowling firepower key to possibility of an upset at Edgbaston

AFP
17 August 2017

West Indies captain Jason Holder believes his pacemen can help the "huge underdogs" make life uncomfortable for England during their upcoming Test series.

The first of a three-match campaign starts at Edgbaston on Thursday with the inaugural day-night Test in England.

The tourists are huge outsiders for the series and the reason for the huge disparity between the two sides is not hard to find; since 1997, excluding matches against the often struggling Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, the West Indies have won just three out of 86 away Tests, losing 66 and drawing 17.

Joe Root and Jason Holder at Edgbaston // Getty

Their last Test win on English soil was at Edgbaston back in 2000 and it would constitute a major upset if they could end their 17-match winless run in the UK by defeating an England side who come into this match on the back of a 3-1 series win at home to South Africa.

But with the first Test a pink ball affair, allrounder Holder believes an emerging pace attack can trouble an England top five where only Alastair Cook and Root are currently certain of their places.

"I think our bowling has really carried us throughout the last few Test matches," said Holder who, like most of his squad, wasn't born in 1988 when the Windies last won a Test series on English soil.

"Shannon Gabriel has had a pretty decent year; I haven't been doing too badly, and we've got young Alzarri Joseph and Miguel Cummins.

But while the West Indies' fearsome pace attack of the 1980s was backed up by batsmen of the calibre of Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd, the present top order are still making their way in international cricket.

"It's just for our batsmen to make some runs," said Holder.

"We've struggled in the past, primarily with our batting, but so far on this tour we've been doing really well," added the captain, who saw four West Indies batsmen score hundreds in their floodlit warm-up match against Derbyshire.

Roston Chase was in good form in the tour matches // Getty

"So I expect good things from the batters (as well)."

The last time the West Indies faced England in a Test series they held them to a 1-1 draw in the Caribbean in 2015.

Prior to that contest, England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Colin Graves had labelled the home side "mediocre".

But two years on, there has been a lack of inflammatory remarks from the England camp.

"But we expect a good contest ... the English come pretty hard, and we expect to go back just as hard at them," insisted the skipper, with the West Indies, unlike England, having already played a day-night Test - a narrow defeat by Pakistan in Dubai in October.